Meet One of Our Members!

Lenore Hrejsa is a big Elvis fan! One can tell by the large photo of him that overlooks her spacious sewing space, bringing excitement to the room. And Lenore is certainly excited about quilting. She was introduced to it some years ago when a colleague at Little Friends brought a quilt to work on during her free time. Lenore was so impressed, she signed up for a class, so she could learn to make one too! Raised in Niles, Illinois, she attended the University of Illinois where she met her husband. They came to Naperville in 1978. After twelve years as a special education teacher at Little Friends, she taught at West Chicago High School until her retirement. But back to her quilting, many classes later...

Bright fabric colors get Lenore’s creative juices going and she especially enjoys paper piecing. A spectacular Cinco de Mayo quilt hangs in a prominent place in her home, attesting to her skill. She tends to like traditional patterns, but makes them "with the most fun colors I can find!" She also enjoys hand quilting, but admits she becomes too impatient to wait that long to finish a piece, so is more likely to send her larger work out to a long-arm quilter. Although she least enjoys precise piecing, Lenore generously put together the applique and star blocks for the guild’s 2015 opportunity quilt, Stars In My Garden.

Just now, an "I Spy" quilt is taking shape on her design wall for her first grandchild. On the same wall, she is building a ½" block quilt such as Mickey Mowry displayed in her trunk show for RQG in July 2014. A member of Prairie Hearts quilt bee, when asked if there are any quilters whose work she especially admires, she was quick to name two RQG members – Kathy Herbach and Carol Wilhoit. Lenore joined the guild five years ago when her friend Jill Seaworth introduced her to RQG. They currently serve together as guild librarians for the second year.